News film

A Trip Down Market Street , an excerpt from a 13-minute topical film. The film was captured by a camera mounted on the front of a cable car and shows a descent down Market Street in San Francisco (released April 21, 1906).

The actuality film is a documentary format of early cinematography . It was structurally similar to a report and only contained non-fictional scenes . As a rule, reference was made to high-profile events from politics , sport , culture and technology , with the topical films based on the sections of the daily newspapers . The added value of the film compared to the newspaper report was the direct experience.

The first film companies produced a large number of current events . The one-act films were shown in mixed programs, alternating with landscapes, short comedies or dramatic films. They are considered to be the forerunners of the newsreels that have been widespread since the 1910s, especially at the beginning of the First World War . Examples of topical films are Arrivée des Congressistes ( Louis Lumière , France 1895), Cortège historique (M. Tollini, M. Pagani, Switzerland 1910) and The Funeral of Vera Kholodnaia (Russia 1919).

literature

Actualities . Basel. Stroemfeld / Roter Stern 1997 (KINtop 6)
Ulrike Oppelt: Film and Propaganda in the First World War . Stuttgart: Steiner 2002 (contributions to the history of communication 10)

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Ursula von Keitz: actualities. In: Lexicon of film terms. Hans J. Wulff and Theo Bender, October 12, 2012, accessed on May 13, 2015 .

[bender-1] Ursula von Keitz: actualities. In: Lexicon of film terms. Hans J. Wulff and Theo Bender, October 12, 2012, accessed on May 13, 2015 .